Groups Push FCC To Schedule Hearing On Fox Stations Challenge

Media Access Project, Free Press, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the United Church of Christ sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Dec. 7 calling for action on their long-standing challenge to the license renewals of Fox's WNYW-TV New York and WWOR-TV Secaucus (NJ).

"The commission’s protracted inaction conveys the impression that licensees are free to abandon specific legal obligations to the public," said the groups, contending that Fox has made "material misrepresentations to commissioners and staff, has lacked candor in its statements to commission staff and has failed to..update applications within 30 days of a material change," as required by FCC rules. The FCC granted Fox a temporary waiver of its newspaper-broadcast crossownership rules in 2001, followed that up with a second temporary waiver that expired, and has since not enforced its divestiture order, the groups said, which challenged the stations' licenses in 2007 on the grounds that Fox should not be able to continue to own a TV station and newspaper (The New York Post) in the same market, and because it had not done enough to serve New Jersey.